Tuscan IGTs were the theme of our Thursday night tasting. “What is a Tuscan IGT?” you ask. Italy’s wine classification system is composed of four classes. VDT – Vino da Tavola indicates the wine made it Italy, without respect to the location. It is generally consumed locally. The IGT – Indicazione Geografica Tipica designation indicates a wine from a specific region in Italy. It is intended to note higher quality than table wines, but they do not conform to the more specific requirements of the DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata) or DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garanita) designations. The IGT designation was created in 1992. Super Tuscans fall into this category. The DOC and DOCG designations more specifically define wine regions, production, alcohol content and varietals that may be used. In addition, DOCGs must undergo blind tasting for quality. The purpose of both of these designations is to create and maintain higher quality wines for local as well as world-wine consumption. The DOC and DOCG designations were defined in 1963. So, as you can see, these wine designations are relatively recent.
Tuscany is in the center of Italy, on the “left” coast opposite the island of Corsica and includes both Florence and Siena. Both Chianti and Brunello are produced in this area.
I think of IGTs as mutt wines. With Tuscan IGTs the combination of grapes is generally Sangiovese with something else, often Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, whatever the winemaker has or prefers to use. The flavors are widely variable in my experience.
We tasted 8 wines on Thursday night…yikes! It was a challenging wine tasting. Vintages ranged from 2004 to 2009.
Because we tried so many wines I am just going to give the highlights of each one.
2008 Toscana Castello Di Meleto – This wine had a very light mouth feel with lots of flavor. A good sipping wine. This was the favorite wine of the night.
2006 Villa Antinori – Bacon fat and smoke along with ripe dark fruit and grippy tannins makes this wine a better choice with food. Maybe some Syrah in this wine?
2006 Campanaio – This wine was very sweet with ripe fruit and tobacco flavors. The tannins were drying and abundant which definitely makes this a food wine.
2007 Il Molini Di Grace Volano – This wine generated many different opinions. The nose was stinky with flavors of dried fruit and raisins and smoother tannins. I thought this wine was over the hill, though other tasters thought it was very interesting.
2007 Antinori Tignanello – The ripe dark fruit and smoke nose gave way to very ripe dark fruit flavors with vanilla and a huge amount of tannins. The finish was very long. This wine was described as having a flavor like cough syrup by several people. This Super Tuscan is a $99 wine!
2009 Rosso Di Altesino – This wine had a yeasty nose (smelled like waffles) with dried fruit flavors and smooth tannins. Most thought this was a pleasant drinking wine.
2007 Tolaini El Passo – Dark cherries on the nose, followed by ripe red fruit and significant, but very smooth tannins and good acid. This was one of my favorites of the group. It is a well balanced and flavorful wine by itself and would pair well with food.
2004 Il Molino Di Grace Gratius – The stinky nose is followed by raisin flavors, spice and dark fruit. Tannins are significant with good acid. This wine had that great combination of light mouth feel and good flavors. This wine has that older wine flavor, but did not taste over the hill.
The alcohol in all of these wines is in the 13.5% range, something I appreciate in wines. Lower alcohol wines pair so much better with food and are easier to drink on their own. I thought this was a very diverse group of wines, of course the vintages varied widely as well. The range of fruit flavors and tannin quality are what stood out to me. Let us know if you have tried any wines from Tuscany that were memorable.
